Tuesday, November 22, 2005

If you have ever installed miniblinds, good for you. I recently moved into a new home and had a hell of a time getting these things installed. Considering myself relatively handy with a power tool I found this odd.

Further investigation revealed that the problem was with the window frame. You see, my windows are surrounded by a nice sharp edge. To create this edge, the builder uses a metal strip on the corner (drywall edges are not so nice). The problem is that the crummy screws you get with the blinds are nearly immpossible to get through this metal strip.

The solution, while obvious now, wasn't for the first few windows...

You can either use a drill to poke through the metal or just a nail. The nail has the added benefit of holding the bracket in place so that you can similtaneously create a second hole while still keeping things lined up. Obviously, it helps to choose a nail that is a little narrower than the screws you will be using ;).

I was cleaning out my desk draw the other day and came across a bunch of batteries. I have a pretty good collection of rechargeables so I threw a few in the charger and plugged it in. After about 20 minutes, I heard a little pop-sizzle-whistle noise. This is what I found:

.

Didn't see it? Look al ittle closer:

You might notice a little foamy goodness leeching out of the non-rechargeable battery.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

This isn't the usual I'm-getting-pressure-to-update-the-site update, no sir.

I have been pretty busy of late. You can thank my company, my dog, and my house for the lack of updates :). Sarah actually encourages me to update the site, so it's not her fault.

Pirate

So let's start with the dog. Pirate is doing fine. He's doing well at driving us nuts, too. He is cute when he wants to be, but he just uses it to lull you into a false sense of security. Once you start trusting him he becomes a trouble maker--eating and defecating everywhere. grrrrrr.He is crate-trained, though, so we can put him in there or outside for a few minutes instead of killing him. :)

We took Pirate to the vet last week because we thought he was very, very sick. Believe it or not, his primary symptom was good behavior. We were concerned because he was moping around and resting all the time, like an old dog. He was also eating, and vomiting grass. Finally, we couldn't confirm that he had defecated that day...at all.

We don't really know what was wrong, but he's fine now. As it turns out, Pirate was a pretty accurate name.

Work

In other news, my Canada project is wrapping up. I was up there all last week and was able to test and release pretty much everything Rovisys has developed, which is good. Hopefully this also indicates that my days of traveling 34% of the time are over.

I talked to my new boss today (I now have 4!) regarding another project he is working on. Apparently, I am now the resident SAP expert. That title is a load of bull, considering how little I know about SAP. On my last project, we developed a thread to move data from a SQL database to a few SAP instances. I never touched any deep and dirty pieces of SAP. I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert.

Moving right along...Rovisys-NC is set to open next week. This means I will be getting out of the house a little more and interacting with adults. I stopped by today to check things out and it is pretty neat. If you know any aspiring engineers or soon-to-be engineers looking for work in the Apex, NC area, let me know. Rovisys has been known to hire all types, even you silly chem e's and mech e's.

Holidays

My entire family is coming down to NC for Thanksgiving this year. We are so excited to see everyone and throw our inaugural thanksgiving bash.

House

My house has grass now! We moved in 10/1/05 and were told to expect the sod to be installed sometime thereafter. I called 11/1 and was told that they forgot about us. I woke up the next morning to 8 pallets of sod at the curb. What service! Just about the time that I began wondering if I should water the pallets (it IS grass, after all), a truck of 12 people showed up and went to work. 10 minutes later, another 10 people arrived with another truckload of equipment. It was the craziest landscaping job I have ever seen. They did my entire front yard in less than 30 minutes. If I were doing this myself, it'd have easily taken two weeks...or more.

Funny

And finally, here's a laugh. Since I've been going to Canada so often, Sarah got me this great shirt:Check out this site. Somehow he puts out a comic every single day. They are hilarious. Plus, I think he is from Ohio.